This past November 2008, PUMA again invited a large number of its stakeholders, representatives of NGOS, and critics and experts in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility to its 6th annual stakeholder meeting in the Monastery of Banz in Germany. The annual affair is jointly run with the German Network of Business Ethics.

The participants engaged in open and constructive dialogue to resolve open issues in the best interest of our stakeholders and to discuss the future strategy of PUMA in terms of supply chain compliance and sustainable development.

The two-day meeting of PUMA employees with stakeholders from different organisations, that have different goals, has led to many productive results in the past. Numerous initiatives emerged from the open and transparent dialogues and discussions and made an impact on PUMA’s sustainability strategy.

The innovative highlight to this year’s meeting was the engaging discussion between PUMA’s CEO Jochen Zeitz and a number of Corporate Social Responsibility experts during the evening of the first day of the meeting. Together with representatives from Deutsches Netzwerk Wirtschaftsethik (DNWE), the Fair Labor Association, a member of the Bavarian government, a University professor as well as the authors Alexandra Harney (“The China Price: The true cost of Chinese competitive advantage”) and Greg Roberts (author of “Shantaram”), Zeitz exchanged views on the need for a paradigm shift in the face of financial crisis, addressing climate change, and the implications of the LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) trend on business and product development.